My last visit in this job and to a workshop in Rwanda on inclusive education, with colleagues from Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique. The first day was the usual early start to travel north to see programmes. After a couple of hours drive the first stop was to meet & pay a courtesy call to the sector officials responsible for education in the area. The head official spoke appreciatevly of VSO's contribution to inclusive education, focusing particularly on people with disabilities & girls, and also the support on livelihoods such as supporting a small pig business, & psychological support for survivors of the genocide. We moved on to a school VSO is involved in which was established in 1950, and we went around observing interactive lessons where children were being taught, for example English through identifying items of clothing, or branches from a tree. This is one of the ways the teachers have learnt to teach with VSO's support, and it aims to make the learning more visual and interactive and interesting. A maths lesson and teaching counting was going on outside with the children moving around in groups to learn to count and also using items found in the playground such as stones. Unusually in this school there are more girls than boys. The head explained that when they saw boys dropping out, usually in order to go to work for example in mining, the school worked together with parents and others to track the children down to try to attract them back to school and to stem the decrease in numbers. A mother was part of the discussion group we were in in the head teacher's office, and she quietly explained this joint working for the children's welfare from her perspective as a parent. The discussion turned to how the school coped with children with disabilities: the Head explained that the school does what it can and tries to adapt, and how he appreciates the way VSO has helped to show different teaching methods. But they have no special facilities or provision, as was clear in the basic rooms we saw. The government and Catholic Church provide some limited support to the school. I was once again struck by how hard the Head and teachers worked here in this District school, and worked with with so very little, to educate the children in their care, to get them to school, and get them to stay in school, and complete their education, to give them a chance of a better life and a livelihood. A stop for lunch at a guest station and a chance to hear from the deputy Mayor who talked about the achievements of schools in the area, and thanked VSO for its help. He talked of development plans from 'the fields up'. At village level there are leaders for different aspects of life, and at village level the children are 'audited' so that needs are clear. This information can then be aggregated and deployed. And he talked too of how genocide survivors, rather than living separately, are included in mainstream society. This inclusivity is also a model for education for children with a range of different needs. Then to our next school, a handful of buildings over a large area, with children ranging in ages. I was struck again by how much effort teachers are putting into trying to involve the children in their own learning, and having so few resources to work with. We sat with the District Education Officer, the most important official at this level. We split up and observed different lessons. I wandered to a series of side buildings and watched the children learning to group skip and held the piece of string with the teacher, who told me how the children enjoyed this little break between lessons. And so a couple of hours drive to the guest house for the night. Driving along roads with a steady stream of people walking home, carrying wood, children carrying water, women with baskets with food on their heads, teenagers pushing a heavily laden bike. The sun setting on this land of many hills, with the last rays through the banana and eucalyptus trees. The next day, we drove to a nearby school for the deaf. The roads were once again busy with women carrying baskets of tomatoes in their heads, teenage boys pushing more heavily laden bikes, small children running hand in hand. The destination this morning was a school for deaf children. It has 110 children, half girls & half boys, aged 7-21 yrs, with 9 teachers. We were met by Louis who had until recently been funding the school from his own pocket. A volunteer from the UK, with 42 years experience of teaching the deaf in the UK, has been at this & another school for 18 months and gave us a briefing. The school has recently gained funding from a UK charity, after some very challenging times. The children learn sign language for 3 years and if they're proficient, they go to mainstream schools. Where available there is a signing teacher who teaches a group of deaf children, alongside and within the lessons with the other children. The most important intervention is a signing teacher for each class in the main schools. Signing gives the children a language to communicate in. 'Sign language is a good language to learn, for everyone, not just the deaf'. Signing has developed and now there is a specific Rwandan sign language. There is no funding for deaf schools in Rwanda from the government & no provision for training teachers for deaf children. The volunteer spoke passionately of how deaf children are capable of contributing to the country, doing jobs like everyone else, if they have a basic education. The alternative is those children usually begging on the streets. VSO is funding a school for parents in the summer, where parents can have the opportunity to learn a very small amount of sign language. A drop in the ocean of need, but a drop nevertheless. The 1st class was a group that's only been in the school since May, as a result of some funding. We saw them in the process of being assessed to determine their level of learning and educational need. The 2nd class was learning to count. There was a range of ages with some of 15yrs but who had previously dropped out of school as there was no help for them to learn as deaf children. We also saw a young man carving and a young woman with a sewing machine, and heard about the livelihoods progects the young people get involved in, so that they have a skill or a trade when they finish at the school. We asked Louis about his motivation, why he paid himself to support deaf children. He told us how he was inspired by a aunt who loved him, who was deaf, and was killed in the genicide. Then we moved on to the mainstream school where some of the children from the deaf school come to study. The first thing I noticed, after the beautiful setting of the school at the bottom of a terraced hill, was the noise, in contrast to the almost silent deaf school. Here there were 1270 pupils, 37 deaf pupils, 33 teachers. Here we saw inclusive education in action with 3 signers for 5 classes helping the deaf children to learn alongside other children and young people.
Following the programme visits we got together with other staff and volunteers, and partner organisations, back in Kigali. We worked together for the day on how we might apply the learnings from the programme visits, and experience from each of our countries, to develop inclusive education. The last day I spent in the office, but early I headed to the memorial. It's so hard to take in the details of the genoice, now 21 years ago. Listening to the stories I found the horror of the genocide and what it did to individuals and communities and the country, hard to relate to the people on the streets and who I had met. The people are determined to move on and be one people. And so it is time to leave Rwanda. I'm struck by what a beautiful country Rwanda is, how the people are moving forward together, and the need for VSO and others' support so that people can be what people everywhere want, healthy, educated, employed, with a voice. Photos here: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B02GsCn7GkUgMn